The Post-Stalin Thaw (1953)

STALIN DIED ON MARCH 5TH 1953: So Stalin's death; America are thinking "right, we're on top" and the Russian's are either thinking "wtf we going to do without our hero who led us through the war" or "thank the dear Lord Stalin has died".

Why was there a thaw?

Russia could start afresh with a new leader

New relationships could be built between leaders

Neither America nor Russia were feeling a nuclear war that would destroy them both

Peaceful co-existance was adopted between the super powers - less chance of invasion! yay!

So everything was going quite swimmingly there was evidence to suggest peaceful co-existance was going well:

Austria

Austria was divided into zones and split up after WW2, however in the Austrian State treaty 1955 the US and the USSR agreed to withdraw their scrary army men, leavng Astria to be a neutral country! despite the USSR using their valuable zone for economic resources and the US turning theirs strongly capitalist.

Finland

Finland lost land (Porkkald - temporarily for 50 yrs) and had to pay 300 Million in repreations both to USSR. And again despite Finland being of great interest to Krushchev (Russias new leader) he gave it up in 1955 as it wasn't useful to them.

On the other hand there was evidence to suggest that it wasn't quite as peaceful as it seemed: